Head trips

Monday

But don't bother looking that word up in any dictionary. It's not there -- yet.

Miller created the word to describe what she does, which is collect, document and research hats. Her ever-growing collection of more than 800 hats from around the world ranks several levels above the ubiquitous baseball-cap collection. Those stuff-them-in-the-closet sports-fan collections don't usually include a chief's horned headdress from Myanmar Burma or a wedding crown from Uzbekistan jingling with coins.

"The whole thing kind of started by accident, but now I would describe myself as obsessive about it," Miller said.

A special exhibit showcasing about 100 of her hats, called "Hats and Headdresses: Adornment of the Head from Around the World," will open Sunday at The Haggin Museum and run through Dec. 30.

Visitors might be surprised to learn there's already a collection of hats sequestered at the museum -- in museum director Tod Ruhstaller's office, who has been a hat collector for years and is thrilled about the museum hosting Miller's collection.

"It's a wonderful exercise you can teach your kids, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that the aesthetic values we have as people from the United States are completely different from the people in Asia or Africa or even Europe," he said. "Hats convey different messages of power or prestige or community. Look at the London bobby helmet. Even though we don't live there, to us, it means an authority figure. That same message is communicated by hats from other countries, but not to us, because it's out of our context. We might look at one hat and think it's something from Petsmart for our dog to play with, when it really means prestige. But we don't see it."

Like many collections, Miller's and Ruhstaller's began simply enough. Ruhstaller bought three hats, including a European pith helmet, in Madrid when he was an exchange student in 1967.

"I wore it home on the plane because I didn't want anything to happen to it," he said. "It happens to be sitting on my desk right now. Once people find out you like hats, you start getting hats. I've got more than 50 now."

Ruhstaller plans to wear a different hat from his collection every day during the Miller exhibit.

"I don't buy hats I can't wear," he said. "That's part of the enjoyment. I can assume a different persona by putting on a hat."

As for Miller's impetus for collecting, she picked up her first hat more than 20 years ago when she was living in Spain. On the spur of the moment, she decided to join a group of Spaniards who were traveling by car to India. In Istanbul, she purchased a hat worn by Muslim men.

"As we continued the trip, I continued buying," she said. "It really didn't turn into a collection until many years later, when I looked around and thought, 'Gee, I've got quite a few hats.' Hats can tell you so much about a person, where they come from, what their place is in their community or what they do, even if they are available for marriage."

One of her favorite hats in the traveling exhibit is the Dayak warrior's headdress, from the Kenyah or Kayan tribe in Malaysia.

"They were headhunters until the 1950s or 1960s," Miller said. "It has a basket frame, some intricate beadwork of a little figure on the front and hornbill feathers, as a way of marking a warrior's accomplishments. From an artistic sense, it's really a fascinating hat using different materials."

Another favorite of hers is the Uzbek wedding crown.

"It has beads and coins and tassels and a beautiful silver top," Miller gushed. "It's an antique hat, though most of the hats in the exhibit are contemporary."

On Nov. 12, the museum will host the Hats and Headdresses Family Festival from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Admission will be free, thanks to a grant from Junior Aid of Stockton. Hands-on art stations throughout the museum will feature hat-related projects inspired by cultural traditions from other countries. The festival also will include treasure hunts and a quiet reading corner. Children wearing the most original hats will be awarded prizes in a competition judged by Ruhstaller.

Miller's hat exhibit, which has been traveling around the country since March 2002, will wrap up its tour in early 2006. Though she recently moved from a house in New Jersey to a larger house outside Rochester, N.Y., Miller still doesn't have enough room for her collection.

"I don't know where I'm going to put them when they come back," she said.